What do you want me to say,
that I like the idea of being an animist, trees my
preferred object of worship? Not once has any tree
ever told me a thing let alone scooped me up and saved me
from the impending flood or an army of orcs surging
from the bowels of earth, sorry, Gaia, ok, Yemaja,
-yeah, yeah, The Ocean, let me finish-
I have listened carefully . . . once I climbed a six-story-high Maple to listen.
Just when I felt I was making some headway a drunk childhood friend
(we were friends since we were children and then adolescents experimenting
with everything from heights, to alcohol to God, just like you want to
instead of normal flirting) climbed one branch above me to see what I was up to.
The last branch actually, which snapped under her light, perfect athletic young body.
She fell six stories, landing on her back conscious enough to know instantly
she was paralyzed and would never ski again. No, that by no means broke her
faith, nor mine, but I highly doubt swapping notes on spiritual practices
is her preferred method of flirting. She is still devoted to sports.
I have not had visions when holding crouching dog for too long or is it arching crane?
I have done neither, but one time I went to Havana with a person much like yourself.
We got a reading from a santero, he gave us beads and a deity each, the beads were so heavy
we had to take the D Train to Brighton Beach and throw them into the sea.
I’m short of breath in saunas so I have never done a sweat lodge but three of my four
deadliest car crashes happened in Vermont where there are many non-Native American
sweat lodges
and after emerging miraculously unscathed from the gnarled remains of 3 out of 4 accidents
(once it was snowing) the sky was profoundly clear and blue, yeah like a door,
maybe a window, not sure.
Sure I’ve had a poem just ‘come to me as if I were a mere vessel,’ but not for
a long time and even those needed editing. Nothing sticks a thorn in my crown
more than a poet fishing to get laid with some spiritual mumbo-jumbo all prostrate
in a room full of guppies. You are correct, the gods’ ability to arouse is profound and
not inappropriate but it can be awkward, like in ’85 when I wanted to convert to Catholicism
in Apizaco Mexico because I was obsessed with the glow-in-the-dark crucifixes
sold outside the church, I wanted to buy as many as I could to sell to
Madonna fans in Boston but felt it would only be appropriate to convert first.
As I toyed with the idea, the idea grew until I could feel generations of Aztecs
pass through me when an old woman brushed my shoulder after prayer. Finally
one evening, after feeling embarrassed about buying yet one more glow-cross
from the same guy five days in a row, I stuffed it in my pants, it began to glow, I felt it,
my abdomen abuzz, my first look at a Victoria’s Secret catalog, ten, alone in the bath.
For all I know God is in lunch, during Ramadan we chose God over lunch for a month.
At sixteen I walked into La Grande Mosquée and announced I wanted to convert to
Islam.
They asked me to say Allah ila haa Mohammedan rasulullah, so I did.
They said, There ya go, you’re a moslem. Yes, it felt anti-climactic even in French.
Then again, celebrating Eid a year later with two thousand other moslems
in the foothills of the Himalayas in un-self-conscious synchronicity was proof
that Allah passes through all of us, with each transfer of spirit, unknown energies
are more palpable. Many times that year I had out-of-body experiences
to the point where I could see myself in context and realized I looked
as post-colonial as the Aussie hippy in Haridwar, saffron robes, beads
and bald head tonguing down his girl in front of Maya Devi Temple.
I will tell you this, one week after my brother died I saw something in the sky
(no, I won’t tell you what it was) that affirmed my belief that everything,
every faith, myth, superstition, miracle, rumor, conspiracy, cult, self-help program,
everything, all of it is true.